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Monday, November 25, 2013

Lemuria - Get Better

Lemuria – Get Better

Asian Man Records, 2007

Acquired: Mississippi Records, Used, 2013

Price: $4

Another rock solid find from Mississippi Records (have I
mentioned that if you’re ever in Portland DEAR SWEET JESUS GO TO THAT RECORD
STORE ALL OF THE HYPE IS TRUE!!!!!!!). Everything’s coming up Lemuria,
apparently, because I now own all of their albums on Vinyl after falling in
love with the band just a few months ago. Excluding their split with Kind of
Like Spitting, Get Better is
Lemuria’s first proper LP and it’s fucking wonderful. It’s more raw than Pebble or The Distance is So Big, but the most enchanting thing about this
band has been watching them (pun inititially unintended but now fully intended)
get better album after album. The songs here are more fully realized than those
on Your Living Room’s All Over Me and
Sheena Ozzella’s vocals are less chirpy and more soulful. The vocal interplay
between Ozzella and songwriter/drummer Alex Kerns clicks a lot better here than
on that aforementioned split. It’s just dreamy hearing a band come into their
own. The fact that it’s on Asian Man Records, a record label that dominated my
punk rock years, makes me dizzy with delight. It’s a fitting label for
Lemuria’s idiosyncratic brand of pop-punk. It’s barely pop-punk though. Outside
of some big power chords and heartmeltingly great hooks, Lemuria have apparently
been hard to pigeon hole from the outset. The songs are both blissfully poppy,
sobering, inventive and almost deceptive in their emotional resonance. The way
these tracks sneak up on you and stick with you is a testament to how fucking
good this Buffalo, NY trio was from the start and I’m almost scared to see how
good their follow up to The Distance is
So Big is gonna be considering that that album is almost definitely vying
for the title of my favorite album of 2013. Get
Better is prophetic in every sense.